


Extra-Curricular Activity

by JohnAmendAll



Series: Holiday Jobs [1]
Category: Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Awesome Zoe Heriot, Children of Time Nominee, Classic Who companions are awesome, Clever Women, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-18
Updated: 2012-08-18
Packaged: 2017-11-12 10:18:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 12,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/489782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JohnAmendAll/pseuds/JohnAmendAll
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some years after <i>The War Games</i>, Zoë receives an unusual job offer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

In its day, Gateway East had been the busiest monorail station in the City. Architects all over the world had bestowed praise and awards on it; engineers had admired the practicality of its layout. At any hour of the day or night, its platforms would have been filled with the bustle of citizens going about their business. Now, in the age of T-Mat, it was a barely-used anachronism. 

Zoë Heriot walked briskly along platform 15, sparing the once-impressive architecture not a glance or a thought. She was too busy wondering who it was who had summoned her here. The request from 'Transient Staff Services' for a few days of her time had been couched in the most polite language, but either it or some accompanying message had caused her employers to move with greater rapidity and decisiveness than she'd thought them capable of. Obviously requests from these people, if ignored, quickly became demands or worse. 

For most of its length, the platform was covered by the station's colossal roof – another one-time architectural wonder, curving overhead like a wave, and now a substrate for algae, dirt, and the feral pigeons which no advance of technology could eliminate. But at its very end the platform protruded into the open air, and as Zoë emerged into full daylight, she saw two people waiting for her. 

She closed the distance between them quickly, her eyes fixed on them. One was a woman, apparently a few years older than herself – slim, blonde and unsmiling, dressed in an uncomfortable-looking business suit not unlike Zoë's own. The man beside her was also wearing a suit, and a similar look suggesting he wasn't at ease in it. His hair was grey, though by his face he was no older than his mid-forties. 

As Zoë came to a halt, the man checked his watch. 

"Doctor Heriot," he said. "Dead on time. Let me introduce myself. I am Richard Stanley, Vice-President of Operations. This is Ms. Newman." 

Zoë shook hands with both, none the wiser. 

"Now," the man continued. "We're very pleased that you've agreed to work for us. A situation needs to be filled as a matter of some urgency, and we believe you to be ideally qualified for the post." 

Ms. Newman smoothly took up the story. 

"It's quite simple," she said. "You may have heard of Sir Charles Harwood." 

"In general terms," Zoë replied. "A wealthy businessman, with a reputation as a recluse." 

"Just so. For the past few years, he has devoted his time and considerable resources to collecting items associated with the occult. Many of these items are rare books, and by now he has accumulated a sizeable library. Your task will be to catalogue this library." 

Zoë hadn't been sure what to expect, but it certainly hadn't been that. She opened her mouth, but before she could ask anything Ms. Newman had carried straight on. 

"For the duration of the contract, you will live in quarters provided by Sir Charles and work such hours as he deems appropriate. Any property you take with you will be confiscated when you commence your duties, and returned to you when you finally depart – including, I'm afraid, your clothes. Sir Charles will provide you with suitable clothing. Either you or he may terminate the agreement at any time, with no prior notice. 

"Do you have any questions?" 

Zoë certainly did, but she decided to start with the least important first. 

"What's all this about being provided with clothes?" she asked. 

"Sir Charles is, shall we say, eccentric. Several of the terms under which he has engaged us appear to be to rule out the possibility of industrial espionage. Thus nothing is allowed which may conceal any form of recording device. All his staff, temporary or permanent, wear a standard uniform. It isn't indecent or anything like that – it's pretty much the same as what you're wearing now – but it is a requirement." 

Zoë nodded. 

"Did you have any other questions?" Ms. Newman continued. 

It took Zoë a few seconds to try to think of a diplomatic way of asking. In the end, she decided to throw caution to the winds. 

"You aren't telling me everything," she said. "There's got to be more to this. I'm certainly not the only person qualified to catalogue a library, and if that's all the job entailed you wouldn't– well, you wouldn't go to all this trouble." 

Ms. Newman looked sideways at Mr. Stanley, who smiled thinly. 

"I can't stop you imagining things, Doctor Heriot," he said. "But I assure you, you are the best qualified person for this job. As my colleague has said, Sir Charles has somewhat exacting requirements. Your duties are exactly as have been described, and the compensation is, I am told, generous. If I might make an unofficial suggestion, it is this: Keep your eyes open." 

"If you need to contact us, send a shortcode to this channel," Ms. Newman added. She held up a business card. "With your memory, you shouldn't need to make a note of it." 

"True," Zoë said. 

"So, will you take the job?" Mr. Stanley asked. 

Zoë nodded again. She still suspected that these people wouldn't take 'no' for an answer, but that was beside the point by now. There was a mystery here. They wanted her to be on the lookout for something. They weren't saying what, perhaps because they themselves didn't know. Her curiosity was engaged, and she'd never had been able to leave an unanswered question alone. 

"I will," she said out loud. 

"Splendid. Now, there are just a few formalities..." 

In a matter of minutes, the formalities had been completed, and Zoë was walking back down the platform. The two representatives of Transient Staff Services remained where they were. 

"Sir," Ms. Newman said, after a while. "Are you sure she's the right person for the job? I don't doubt that she's clever, but she's an amateur. Wouldn't one of our people be better?" 

"A fair point, Captain," was the reply. "Moreover, for all her excellent qualities, Dr. Heriot is much too honest to be an effective spy. Anyone in the household with the slightest reason to suspect her– Still, it could all be a mare's nest. In which case, we can send her back to her day job none the wiser." 

Ms. Newman made no reply. 


	2. Chapter 2

Zoë looked herself up and down in the mirror. "It seems to fit all right," she said cheerfully. 

The skinny redhead sitting in the corner seemed to relax slightly. "Good," she said. "We don't always get accurate measurements. I'm sorry if you find this an imposition, but Sir Charles does insist–" 

"Yes; I've been told that." Zoë turned round. "Is that the lot? I take it there isn't a cavity search, because if there was you've have performed it before giving me these clothes." 

"You're taking this very calmly," her guide – she'd introduced herself as June Simmonds – said. 

"I try not to get upset about things I don't have any control over." 

"I didn't mean..." June seemed to fumble about for the correct wording, and gave up. "I'll show you to your quarters now, Dr. Heriot." 

She set off back into the maze of corridors. Zoë followed, idly running over her impressions so far. 

*

The Harwood Tower had been within easy walking distance of the station. It was of a class of building familiar to Zoë by sight – an all-in-one, a self-contained environment with sufficient facilities to support every possible activity, powered by its own comparatively small fusion reactor. Like most such buildings in the City, it was nearly windowless and its outer surface was coated with a thin layer of artificial diamond. There was no apparent indication of what the tower was for, or to whom it belonged. It was just one more modern marvel in a city full of them, and before today Zoë wouldn't have given it so much as a second glance. 

June had been waiting for her outside the tower, and after a hasty introduction had led her past uniformed guards and who knew what other security systems, through a grandiose, pristine and entirely empty reception area, and then into an undistinguished locker room where she'd surrendered all her clothes and portable property and changed into the uniform she was now wearing. 

She wondered which bits of the experience she'd reacted atypically to. Perhaps she hadn't shown enough visible surprise at the vastness of the reception area; or was it the way she'd handed over her own clothes and possessions when asked to, without protesting? She dismissed the matter from her mind. Even if her training had damaged her capacity for 'normal' emotions – whatever 'normal' meant – it was too late to do anything about it now. 

*

"Here we are," June said. "T-Mat to all levels." 

"Really?" Zoë looked around the circular, booth-lined chamber. 

"That's right. It's the only way you can get around in here. There's no alternative." 

"What?" This time Zoë's surprise was all anyone could have hoped for. "No lifts or stairs at all?" 

"None." 

"But the energy costs– I suppose the tower has its own reactor, but even so, that's a lot of power. And what happens if it goes wrong?" 

June gave a confident smile. "It never does." 

"But don't you see–" Zoë caught herself before she could deliver one of her stock lectures on the importance of backups and redundant systems. It wasn't as if June was in a position to do anything about it. Setting the matter aside for future consideration, she followed her into one of the booths. 

"Staff quarters," June said to the empty air. The booth briefly hummed; the room outside flickered and became a broad hallway, with scattered clusters of chairs. It was decorated in the same bland, neutral style as the other rooms and corridors Zoë had visited so far, but for the first time there were signs that this area was used by actual people. It lacked the brand-new, untouched atmosphere of the public areas of the building. 

"How many people live here?" Zoë asked. If this was a common room, it could accommodate – she estimated quickly – twenty, perhaps? 

"At the moment? Twelve, I think, counting you. That's just the paid staff, of course. If you include Sir Charles and his family, fifteen." June began counting on her fingers. "Me, you, a butler, a valet, a personal trainer, a cook, a secretary, four guards" – she ran out of fingers and began again – "And a techie. Twelve." 

"Just a minute. You mean that in all this tower, there are just fifteen people? Sir Charles, his children–"

"Nephew and niece."

"Then Sir Charles, his two relatives, and twelve of us?"

"Yes." 

"Well!" As if the T-Mat hadn't been enough proof. An all-in-one this size could accommodate thousands of people in perfectly reasonable comfort. To run it for the benefit of just three individuals was absurdly wasteful. Presumably this was another one of Sir Charles's eccentricities. 

June broke in on her thoughts. "You'll be in suite 17, over here. Mine's number 8, just so you know. I've got to get back to my work now. You'll be called for when needed." She'd already climbed back into the T-Mat booth while she was talking. "Office level." 

"Thank you," Zoë said, as June vanished in the blink of an eye. 

*

Seated at the computer terminal in her so-called suite – decidedly inferior to what she'd expect from a cheap hotel – Zoë mechanically glanced at floor plans, safety procedures, lists of facilities. Her mind was elsewhere, still trying to make sense of this place. The entrance door to suite 17 had slid open as she approached it, without her having to lift so much as a finger. That suggested either that whatever controlled the building had been programmed to recognise her, or that her new uniform contained a tracking device which could identify her – probably both. 

The terminal chimed, interrupting her thoughts. She tapped the appropriate control, and the screen cleared to show a vigorous middle-aged man, with a neatly trimmed grey beard. He wasn't wearing the staff uniform, so presumably this must be Sir Charles himself. 

"Dr. Heriot?" he asked. 

"Yes," Zoë said. 

"Sir Charles Harwood. Are you ready to start your duties?" 

"I am." 

"Good. Report to me in the main library straight away." 

Before Zoë could acquiesce, the screen went blank again. 


	3. Chapter 3

In contrast to the bland, cramped staff quarters, the areas of the Harwood Tower used by Sir Charles and his family were spacious and very, very elaborately decorated; in Zoë's opinion, decorated to excess. The walls were panelled with what appeared to be carved wood, which in turn had been painted with brightly-coloured images that looked as if they'd been picked at random from a gallery of clipart. The ceilings were two or three times as high as the one in Zoë's room had been, vaulted in a profusion of styles, and with colossal chandeliers providing light. Everything that could be gilded, had been. 

To add to the visual confusion, the place had been dotted with works of art. Against the riot of colour and imagery on the walls, they tended to blend in or clash horribly. Free-standing sculptures lined the corridors, ranging from Romanesque busts to Modernist abstracts. Tapestries and banners on the walls struggled for attention against both the wall decoration and the occasional portrait. In her short journey to the library, Zoë noted at least two images of Sir Charles – both clean-shaven, and looking some years younger than he had in real life. 

It was quite a relief to Zoë, when she reached the library, to find that its decor was, by comparison, restrained. Not only that, but there was an air of untidiness suggesting that the room was actually for use rather than show. Several of the cabinets in which the books were stored stood ajar; the furniture, while not exactly worn, nevertheless didn't look brand-new; and the lighting was much more practical than ornamental. 

Sir Charles was standing beside a desk at one end of the room. 

"Doctor Heriot," he said, as Zoë approached. "Delighted to meet you." 

They shook hands. 

"Now," he continued briskly. "As I believe you've been told, I'd like you to sort this library out. Let me show you how the filing system works here." 

As Zoë had been half-expecting, the filing system turned out to be the best that money could buy, and could comfortably have handled a library orders of magnitude bigger than the collection she had to deal with. The skill with which Sir Charles talked her through the basic procedures showed that, whatever eccentricities he might be manifesting, his intellect was still formidable. 

"Any questions?" he asked eventually. 

Zoë briefly ran through various possibilities. The main question to which she had no satisfactory answer – "Why did you hire me?" – seemed somehow inappropriate; she could do the job, it would be an interesting change from her usual work, and the pay was, to say the least, generous. Perhaps she'd ask that question later. 

"Not at the moment," she said out loud. "But if I do need to ask something later, once I've started work properly, how should I go about it?" 

She received in reply a further infodump, giving a number of methods depending on the nature and urgency of any problem that might arise. Then, without pausing for breath, Sir Charles bade her good day and departed. 

Once more left to her own devices, Zoë donned the provided pair of thin white gloves, and set about her assigned task. 

*

"Oh, sorry." 

Zoë looked up at the interruption. A man was standing in one of the doorways. Since he wasn't wearing the uniform, he had to be a member of the family – or, possibly, a guest. Her first impression was that he was thirtyish, untidy and ill-at-ease. His clothes were expensive, but carelessly worn, and his dark hair was disordered. 

"Sir Charles is my uncle," he explained abruptly, and set a book down on the table. "I'll be in and out from time to time. Keep up the good–" 

He broke off, looked around vacantly for a few seconds, and then turned and made for the door. On the threshold, he seemed to realise he'd forgotten to mention something. 

"William Harwood," he said, and darted out before Zoë could answer. 

*

Zoë didn't meet anyone else until she'd finished her duties for the day. As instructed, she'd left the library at 17:30 sharp, and was heading back to the T-Mat area, turning over her first day's work in her mind. From the existing records on the system, it looked as if two or three people had been there before her, each one entering the details of about half as many books as she'd done that day. Then what? Had they been dismissed? Or resigned, unable to deal with Sir Charles or his nephew? 

As for the books themselves, most of them seemed to be content-free nonsense. Zoë was used to fields of knowledge where the great discoveries of the past, the theorems or laws or principles, blazed like stars. Here, there was nothing but darkness and fog. 

"You there." 

Zoë jumped and looked over her shoulder. For a moment, she thought she recognised the young woman standing there. In height, hair and clothing, the new arrival was an exact match for Loretta Valentine, whose songs had topped the charts when Zoë was fourteen, and who still performed to sell-out crowds all these years later. But logic swiftly told her it couldn't be. 

"You're the new book nerd, aren't you?" the other persisted. 

"I have been hired to catalogue the library, yes," Zoë replied, keeping her tone emotionless and factual. 

"Don't try to correct me. I called you a book nerd so that's what you are. Come with me." 

Zoë hesitated. She'd been hired to work for Sir Charles, not for anyone else. On the other hand– 

"Are you an idiot or something? If you don't do what I say I'll tell my uncle and you'll be out on the street like that." She snapped her fingers. "I had the last one dismissed for insolence. I'll do it again if I want. Now you're going to do as I tell you. Say yes milady." 

So this was Sir Charles's niece. Best to comply. "Yes, milady." 

"That's better. Follow me." 

Zoë, as she'd done all her life, did as she was told. 

*

A short T-Mat trip saw the two standing side by side on the topmost floor of the Harwood Tower, looking out over the City. A geodesic dome overhead allowed sunlight in, but kept sounds and birds out. The whole area under the dome was laid out as a garden, with the same lack of moderation as elsewhere – statues, fountains, and a thousand varieties of plant struggled against each other for attention. Zoë knew very little about gardening, but she suspected that some, or perhaps all, of the plants were artificial. 

"Uncle said you were a madgirl," Sir Charles's niece began. "Is that true?" 

Zoë was familiar with the insult. It referred to the rumour that the sort of parapsych education she'd received would inevitably destroy your sanity. Her parents and teachers had assured her that there wasn't a shred of truth in it; but after the incident on the Wheel, when Commander Bennett had undeniably lost his grip on reality, she'd not been entirely easy on that point. 

"It is, milady," she said out loud. 

"And you're very highly qualified, aren't you? Tell me." 

"I've got a PhD in astrophysics," Zoë replied, still keeping her voice level and to the point. "MSc in mathematics. International..." 

"That'll do. D'you know what I've got?" 

"No, milady." 

"I've got all this." She gestured at the window. The City lay before them, spread out in all its beauty, like a crystal garden carefully planned and tended. "I'm richer than you can dream of and all your stupid qualifications do is make you suitable to serve me and my uncle. So don't ever, ever, think you're better than me. Got that?" 

"Yes, milady." 

"Good. Go away." 

*

Once Zoë had returned to the staff quarters, she found June a useful source of information. 

"Yes, that's Sir Charles's niece all right," she said. "Stuck-up cow, isn't she? Angela, her name is. Of course, we aren't allowed to use it to her face." 

"It's a very nice face," Zoë said gravely. 

"So it should be, considering how much work she's had done on it. There was nothing wrong with her in the first place, but she wanted to look like Loretta and that was that. If she shouts at you, just try to keep calm. And it helps if you treat her like an aristocrat." 

"Is she one?" 

"In this place? She's whatever she wants to be. If she wants to pretend she's the Queen of France and we're her servants, that's what happens." 

"France was a republic." 

June shook her head. "Never mind. If you jump through the proper hoops she'll leave you alone. I'll teach you the right things to say and do. She didn't upset you, did she?" 

"I think she was trying to. I'm not sure if it worked." 

"You're not sure..." June shook her head again. "You'd better go and get some rest." 

Zoë shrugged, and did so. 


	4. Chapter 4

Several days after she'd arrived at the Harwood Tower, Zoë felt she was beginning to get a grip on things. The library was yielding to her organising efforts in the most obliging way, Sir Charles and his nephew were always at the least polite to her, and she hadn't had to deal with Angela again. Even her subconscious seemed to appreciate the break from routine; her dreams these last few nights had been mildly surreal fantasies rather than the usual nightmares. 

"Something the matter?" June asked. 

Zoë, who'd been frowning at the food machine, jumped and turned quickly. 

"Oh, sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to get in your way. I was just trying to see if this machine can do peaches." She waved her hand vaguely. "Well, it can't. Peach juice, yes, but not the fruit itself. Perhaps I could pop out and buy some." 

June shook her head. 

"It doesn't work like that," she said. "If you go out, you have to go through all the procedures again when you come back in. And you can't bring anything back with you." 

"I suppose I should have thought of that. Oh, well, it can't be helped." 

She hurriedly jabbed at the machine, waited for it to disgorge her breakfast, and made for a free table. June made her own selections and then followed her. 

"Why did you want peaches anyway?" she asked. 

Zoë paused. What had put the idea in her mind had been last night's dream. But trying to explain her dreams to anyone else... she didn't know where she'd begin. Not to mention that dreaming about eating fruit, especially in the company of a young man like Jamie, probably carried bucketloads of symbolism and she didn't want the benefit of whatever amateur psychoanalysis June could offer. 

"I just felt like one," she said out loud. 

"A sudden craving?" June narrowed her eyes. "Doctor Heriot, you aren't..." 

"Aren't what?" 

"Never mind." June sat back in her chair, and cast about for another topic of conversation. "How are you getting on, generally? I mean, you don't seem to find it too stressful having to live and work cooped up in here." 

"I've lived on a space station," Zoë said simply. 

"Yes, of course. Silly of me. Well, as long as you're feeling all right, fine. If you don't, get hold of me. We've got access to a range of medication if you need it." 

"Thank you." The more she thought about it, the more like the Wheel this was – the cramped quarters, the artificial food that never quite matched the real thing – and, of course, the small, close-knit crew who treated any newcomer with suspicion until they'd proved themself. Or was it something about her that had that effect on people? 

She pushed that unsettling thought aside, finished her breakfast, and set out for the library. Halfway to the T-Mat, another point of possible similarity between the Tower and the Wheel flickered into her mind. Both environments answered, ultimately, to a man whose behaviour had made people suspect his mental stability. 

*

"Secrets Learned in the Study of the Great Art," Zoë dictated to the library computer. "Attributed to an unknown student of Raymundus Lullus. Quarto, approximate date 1510, presumed copied from an earlier work. Condition good. Subject matter..." 

She paused, and took a deep breath. As with most of the books she'd catalogued, she'd have liked to say "Mostly gibberish" at this point. But more detail than that was required. 

"... Folklore and legends relating to Egypt and North Africa," she compromised. 

The door opened and William Harwood came in. As usual, he stopped dead on seeing her, as if he still wasn't used to the idea that she was working there. 

"Don't mind me," he said. "Keep up the good work." 

Zoë pretended not to notice him as he glanced vaguely over the shelves, and took down a book. Zoë recognised its cover; it was a nineteenth-century account of witch trials in Herefordshire, with most of its pages still uncut. She'd added it to the catalogue the day before yesterday. 

"How d'you find it?" he asked abruptly. "The work, I mean?" 

"It's... different," Zoë said slowly. "Everything on paper, just like you see in the history vids. I wondered at first why you hadn't had it all digitised." 

"Only at first?" 

"Well, it really isn't my business, so I tried not to waste time thinking about it." 

"Did you come up with a reason?" 

"I put it down to Sir Charles'–" She'd been about to say "paranoia", but hastily substituted "–caution. It's easy to copy digital information, much harder to copy or steal a physical book." 

Harwood, whose eyes had been darting around the room, looked hard at her. "And you think that's the reason why we've stuck with paper?" he asked. 

Zoë shrugged. "I couldn't say. But it would be so convenient to have digital copies – you could find whatever you're looking for in a fraction of the time. Of course, you'd keep the originals in case there was something that the digitiser didn't pick up." 

"Very efficient." Harwood paused briefly, and changed the subject. "You're a scientist, I believe. What do you make of all this?" He gestured around at the library. "Witchcraft, astrology, alchemy, demonology. I suppose you think it's all nonsense. Nothing but sophistry and illusion, as Hume put it." 

Zoë opened her mouth to answer, paused, and closed it again. A few days ago, she'd have agreed without a second thought. Why did it feel dishonest to do so now? 

"I don't believe in any of those," she said. "But perhaps there are still things to be learned from these books. I mean, if you were an archaeologist, you might find one of these books led you to an undiscovered site." She was talking more or less on autopilot, puzzling over why she could no longer dismiss the whole thing out-of-hand. "Or they might help someone researching the oral transmission of legends." 

"I see what you mean, Doctor." He turned the book he held over in his hands, not looking at it. "Or perhaps we just collect these books for the sake of collecting them." 

"Of course. I didn't think of it like that. Yes, if you're interested mainly in the physical books, you wouldn't need to digitise–" 

The door flew open, and Angela Harwood swept in, wearing an iridescent dress that, by the look of it, had cost more than Zoë earned in a year. 

"Will!" she said, without preamble. "Come and get changed at once. You'll be late for lunch." 

"What, already?" 

"Yes. Why else am I here, idiot? Why can't you be like Uncle? He's always on time, however busy he is." 

"Sorry," Harwood muttered to Zoë. "Got to go." 

He darted out. Angela remained briefly, glaring at Zoë as if she were a particularly loathsome beetle. 

"The sooner you're gone the better," she said. "Will spends too much time in here as it is. And don't get any ideas about tricking him into marrying you. Gold-diggers like you belong in the gutter." 

Zoë remained silent, as she'd been taught to. Perhaps a few years ago, her temper would have flared, but these days she seemed to be able to control it better. 

"Get on with your work, girl. Got that?" 

Zoë bowed her head. "Yes, milady." 

She waited until the door had closed, and then turned back to her cataloguing. Half-a-dozen books later, she found that she wasn't working at her usual speed; at her normal rate, she should have done at least eight by now. And she had the distinct feeling that she'd just missed something important, though she got that one frequently for no apparent reason. 

Three more books, and she'd narrowed her unease down to something William Harwood had or hadn't done in his recent conversation. Five books after that, she was no closer to the truth. Moreover, the question was beginning to distract her. The pamphlet she was currently staring at, she realised, was one she'd already catalogued, and if she'd been paying proper attention she'd have put it in its place on the shelves. 

She was reaching for it when realisation dawned. The book Harwood had taken didn't fit the pattern. 

When she'd first come here, she'd mentally lumped nearly all the books together as nonsense. But by now, she found herself instinctively grouping them in several categories. Something Victorian and scholarly wasn't William Harwood's normal reading matter at all; the other works he'd interested himself in had all been much older, and mostly written by, in Zoë's opinion, maniacs. 

Well, Harwood could read whatever books he liked and it was no concern of hers. She forced herself back to the work she'd been hired for. 

*

Zoë was accustomed to take her lunch break in a small anteroom not far from the library. In between mouthfuls of synthesized yogurt substitute, she found her sense of curiosity refused to drop the question of William Harwood's behaviour. He was definitely taking the books away to read – except perhaps the Victorian one, which could have been an excuse to talk to her. He was behaving like a researcher, almost certainly studying the books for the information contained in them. Therefore his talk of being a book collector was probably nonsense, and her own theory, that these books were being kept as secret as possible, looked more likely. Was he sifting through the books, looking for some buried truth hidden in among all the nonsense? A truth that couldn't possibly be allowed to leak? 

Again, she tried and failed to dismiss the whole thing as nonsense. Each time she tried, her unruly memory presented her with some unsettling woodcut or scrawled annotation, barely noticed at the time. It wasn't that she recognised them. They just shared a common thread, an attempt to fit something utterly unfamiliar into a mental framework that couldn't really comprehend it. Like trying to deal with recurring decimals when all you had was Roman numerals... 

Suppose that there really was some terrible secret buried in this mountain of books. William Harwood, perhaps his uncle too, would have been looking for it for years. They'd decided they needed an accurate catalogue – perhaps Sir Charles's paranoia was making him suspect that books were going missing. So they'd asked for a physical scientist to do the work. They'd expected someone who relied on facts and logic and ignored vague intuitions, someone who would have dismissed the actual contents of the books as nonsense. And that was how she'd ended up here. 

The question now was, what should she do? She certainly didn't have any grounds to contact the people who'd sent her. Her theory was just that, a theory. The thing to do was to keep working, see if any evidence came up to prove or disprove it, and – just in case it was true – keep on the good side of the Harwood family. 

Zoë nodded to herself, crossed to the food machine, and ordered water. She was probably making a fuss about nothing, she decided. She really shouldn't– 

The plastic cup slipped from her hand. She gasped, staggered, tried to support herself on the back of a nearby chair, and then collapsed unconscious to the floor. 


	5. Chapter 5

When Zoë recovered consciousness, she found herself lying on a table, with steel bands around her wrists and ankles, and cold metal pressing against her forehead. The table wasn't horizontal; it was angled, allowing her to see something of the room she was in. 

Directly in front of her was a workbench, heaped with devices which seemed to belong to every time period. Most were partly-disassembled and dusty, but she recognised a few from the books she'd catalogued, and a few more from other sources. That brass ring, for example, had to belong to an astrolabe, while the globe of viscous liquid and wire was some sort of bioelectronic processor. What appeared to be mineral samples, or perhaps just random lumps of rock, were scattered here and there. If it wasn't for the distinct lack of elaborate glassware, beakers full of coloured liquid, and dry ice, the collection would have made an excellent stage prop representing a mad scientist's laboratory. 

Closer to the middle of the bench, the various components had a more complete look to them. Coloured wires and tubes linked them all to a central cluster. Again, there was the same mix between strange and familiar technology, and she was only able to identify some elements. Unlike the discarded bits and pieces on the periphery, these bore the marks of repeated alterations. It looked as if someone had tried to realise some of the crazier ideas from the books, and then spent significant amounts of time tinkering until what they'd built actually worked. 

"She's woken up," William Harwood's voice said from somewhere behind her. 

"Excellent timing," Sir Charles's voice replied. "Lock the controls and we'll see how she's feeling." 

There were a series of clicks from behind her. Then Sir Charles and his nephew appeared in front of her. William Harwood looked even more nervous than usual, while his uncle, affable and in control of the situation, didn't seem to have turned a hair. 

Zoë took a deep breath. It was a long shot, but– 

"Communications. Shortcode. Transmit 24955." 

Nothing happened, save that Sir Charles gave her a regretful smile. 

"I'm sorry, Doctor," he said. "Your access to the computers in this building has been revoked. As you have just proved, it would have been extremely foolish if we'd let you call your superiors for reinforcements. By the way, please don't damage yourself trying to break free. The physical restraints on their own would be beyond your strength to open, and there is an additional force field element." 

Zoë tried anyway. The steel bands holding her were exemplars of immovable objects; it was like pushing against a mountain. 

"We have a little time in hand," Sir Charles continued. "So if you have any questions to ask, you may do so." 

"I don't believe this," Zoë said bluntly. "You've tied me up and now you're going to put everything on hold and tell me your plans? I'd expect that of a comic-strip villain." 

"Oh, on the contrary. We have already passed the point of no return; otherwise you wouldn't be conscious and talking to us." 

"All right." Zoë got her thoughts in order. "I suppose you think I'm some kind of secret agent." 

"Oh, we know you've been sent here as a spy. You've been watched very closely, Doctor, from the moment you first came here. Up to this morning, you played the harmless librarian quite well. But doubtless you were under orders to report to whoever had sent you, and so you came up with the cover story of wanting to go out and buy fruit." 

"Really!" Zoë decided that there was no point in wasting politeness on someone who could believe that. "That's just nonsense." 

"That was just the first indication," Sir Charles replied, still sounding courteous and unruffled. "The second was the conversation you had with William here." 

"She knew there were secrets worth finding," William said, looking at his uncle and avoiding looking at Zoë. "It was practically the first thing she said. She didn't even consider the possibility that we were just bibliophiles." 

Zoë would have shrugged, had she not been immobilised. 

"Yes," she said. "I didn't see why anyone would own books and not read them. That's all." 

"Now, now, Doctor," Sir Charles resumed. "Your heart rate and brain activity were also monitored. From those readings, it's quite clear that you realised you'd given yourself away. And, of course, your attempt to call for help just now condemns you out of your own mouth. Do you have any other questions?" 

"I suppose this thing I'm wired up to is one of the secrets you've found?" 

"Ah. A perceptive question, Doctor. I'm told that it is, though my nephew is more au fait with the details. Go on, William." 

"The thing is, aliens," William said. He was still looking away from Zoë, concentrating on the rat's nest of wiring in front of him. "Aliens have been visiting this planet for thousands of years. And all that time, those in power have tried to cover it up. The Roman Empire, the Inquisition, the Rosicrucians... But here and there, little pieces of information survived, because no-one knew what they were. No-one's managed to put them back together yet. Look at van Statten. He tried. He was a billionaire, when that word still meant something. The Establishment still got to him and destroyed him and everything he'd worked for." 

"I wish you'd get to the point," Zoë said. She made a mental note that if she did get out of this predicament in one piece, she'd have to follow up that mention of van Statten. In the history she'd been taught, he'd been a mere footnote. 

"All right, I will. All through history, people have written of contact with angels, spirits, demons, call them what you like. Incorporeal beings with great powers. We believe we've found an alien lifeform which matches this description. And now we're putting our theory to the test." 

"This machine...?" Zoë asked. Something flickered at the corner of her eye, and she glanced sideways, but failed to see whatever it was. 

"Ought to be summoning one of those creatures right now," William confirmed. 

Blurred specks were floating in front of Zoë's eyes, as if she'd looked at a bright light– which she hadn't. 

"Unfortunately, the state of the art at present requires a living brain," Sir Charles said. "Doubtless when the process is better understood, that stage can be bypassed or a biotech substitute can be used. Our mediæval forebears didn't have that option, and so, for now, neither do we." 

The specks were resolving themselves into simple geometric shapes – circles, lines, polygons. They rotated slowly, dizzyingly, in front of Zoë. She screwed up her eyes and tried to will the patterns away, to no effect. 

"Couldn't you have used an animal?" she asked. 

"They died," William said bluntly. "The primates lasted longest, then the other larger mammals." 

"Again, that was to be expected," Sir Charles added. "The procedures we've been able to reconstruct were designed for humans." 

Whatever the entity was, Zoë now had no doubt that it existed and was working its way into her head. No matter where she looked, the odd shapes were right in the middle of her field of vision, looking more real and solid than her surroundings. 

"So you're going to sacrifice–" She stopped, suddenly losing the track of her thoughts. 

"You," William completed the sentence for her. 

"Hang on. This thing takes over my mind." Zoë could hear her voice slurring; presumably her speech centres were under attack. "Something powerful, if you can call it an angel or devil. Then what? It kills you." 

"And that is the crux, of course," Sir Charles, or at least his fuzzy outline, said. "By far the largest part of this system is designed to restrict and control the creature, or, failing that, to destroy it or its host. The restrictions work at several levels, from the physical to the ethereal. Ah, they're coming online now." 

It felt as if whatever was attached to Zoë's forehead was closing around her, crushing her head in its grip. She couldn't see the device any more, or Sir Charles or his nephew. Her vision was filled with spinning lines, shapes, and equations of increasing sophistication. Whatever was in her mind seemed to be learning quickly. It couldn't be long now before it completely took her brain and body over. She could feel it rummaging through her memory, ransacking it for the facts and physical laws that had made up nearly all of her education. 

That must mean it was still relying on what was in her mind for knowledge of the world it was entering. And if so– 

Zoë's consciousness was engulfed in pain and blazing light. 


	6. Chapter 6

Zoë blinked, trying to clear the afterimages from her eyes. That flash of light hadn't been an illusion; it had been a real event. The pain was already fading from her body. Her mind seemed to be her own once more. Try as she might, she could no longer feel the presence of whatever Sir Charles had tried to download into her head. 

Her vision was still blurred, but her other senses were working fine. The stink of burning electronics, the gusts of warm air against her face, and the crackling noise all led her to the same conclusion. Something was on fire. 

Things were getting clearer now. Sure enough, the device she'd been connected to was burning. Tongues of flame raced through the network of cables surrounding it, licking against the other equipment. Apart from the spreading conflagration, there was no other light at all, not even power telltales on the lab equipment. Zoë drew the obvious conclusion: the supposedly infallible main electricity supply must have failed. 

Just in case her restraints might have been affected by the power failure, she tugged at them. They didn't feel quite as solid as before; there was definitely an element of play in the steel bands round her wrists. But she couldn't get out. Here she was, immobilised and probably about to burn to death... 

"Uncle? Where are you? What's happening?" 

_That's Angela's voice_ , Zoë found herself thinking calmly. _Seems quite close._

"Help me!" she called back. "I'm trapped!" 

There was a moment's pause, and then Angela's footsteps could be heard behind her. 

"Oh no," was all she could say. Zoë couldn't see her, but could picture that vacant, artificially beautiful face staring at the motionless figures of her uncle and brother. "Oh no." 

"Angela!" Zoë shouted, abandoning the social protocols and proper modes of address that she'd patiently learnt. 

"But William–" Angela began. Her voice sounded dull and it was obvious that she wasn't thinking coherently. 

Zoë took a deep breath, and summoned all her logic and detachment. 

"Please get me out of here," she said, trying to sound reasonable. "I might be able to help them." 

"How?" 

"Those bands round my wrists. Try to pull one apart." 

Angela fumbled with the restraint on Zoë's left wrist for what felt like minutes before it snapped open. Zoë, with one arm free, quickly managed to release her other arm, and then extricate herself from her remaining bonds. She clambered down off the table, knelt by the prone figures on the floor, and checked each in turn for a pulse. 

"They're both dead," she said. "I'm sorry." 

Angela grabbed her arm. "You bitch! You just wanted me to let you out! You killed them! No, they aren't dead and you want to leave them to burn..." 

"Angela, they are **dead**." 

"You– You murderer. I'll kill you!" 

Still holding onto Zoë's arm, Angela wildly struck out with her other hand. But it seemed that the field of martial arts was another area in which she'd never been educated; throwing her off balance and slipping out of her grasp was ridiculously easy. It had to be something to do with the physical exertion, or the peril of their situation, Zoë thought. Her mind seemed to be working better than it had for months, and her senses felt preternaturally sharp. With painful clarity she realised that the fire was spreading rapidly, and that there was nothing she could do to stop it. The lab may have boasted an impressive collection of equipment, but it didn't seem to stretch to fire extinguishers. 

"Angela," she said, loudly but still keeping emotion out of her voice. "We have to go. If you stay here, you'll be burned alive." 

"Leave me alone–" Angela began. 

Zoë threw diplomacy to the winds, took a firm hold of Angela's arm, and dragged her out. Once they were in the corridor, she let go of Angela, turned back and slid the door shut, cutting them off from the heat of the fire. It suddenly felt very cold, and there was no light at all. If Angela hadn't been sobbing loudly, Zoë wouldn't have known she was there. 

She waited a little in case Angela said anything coherent, but she didn't. 

"Angela," she said again, this time trying to sound encouraging. "We've got to get out of here. That fire could spread." 

"How?" Angela asked, sounding as if her temper had suddenly flared up and she was taking a savage pleasure in the difficulty of the situation. "It's dark and we can't see and even if we could get to the T-Mat it won't work. So much for your education, Miss Clever. You're just as trapped as I am." 

"Unless you've got any sensible ideas, follow me and shut up," Zoë said, her own impatience rising. "Take my hand." 

She reached out in the direction where Angela's voice was, and eventually located her. 

"Let go of me!" 

"This is very simple. Even you should be able to understand it." Despite their situation, Zoë was almost enjoying this; she'd been wanting to give Angela a piece of her mind since they first met. "I am going to try and find a way out, with or without you. If you want to do the same, you will have a much greater chance of success if you accompany me. And if you don't, you run the risk of being burned alive, if the fire spreads." 

"But–" 

"Coming?" And without waiting for an answer, Zoë set off. It might be pitch dark, but the layout of the building was clear in her mind. Her free hand she held out in front of her, feeling for obstacles. 

The journey seemed to take forever. Since she knew where she was going, she'd envisaged herself confidently walking along, a dot moving through a neat floorplan. Actually doing it was quite another thing. Every room and hallway was an obstacle course of occasional tables, pedestals, artificial vegetation, and artworks, nearly all of which seemed to have painfully sharp edges. In the utter darkness, opening or closing her eyes made no difference. Either way, all she could see was swirling grey-black blobs. 

Angela had, to begin with, divided her time between bemoaning her fate and blaming their current plight on Zoë; gradually, she'd calmed down enough to make the occasional helpful remark, mostly confirming where they were. The smell of burning was following them, though, and the air was getting warmer. 

"Where are you trying to get to, anyway?" Angela asked at one point. 

_It took you ages to think of that_ , Zoë thought, but her sense of tact, such as it was, stopped her saying it. 

"I don't know what name you give it," she replied out loud. "But it's a polygonal room, below average size, roughly in the northeast corner of the tower." 

"Ask a silly question. What does that mean in normal people speak?" 

Before Zoë could answer, the floor shuddered under their feet. A fraction of a second later, they were knocked to the ground by a scalding blast of air. A dull boom was counterpointed by various shattering and tinkling noises. 

"What was that?" Angela's voice asked, sounding distant and faint. 

"I think," Zoë began, and realised that she couldn't hear herself speak. She held her nose and swallowed; her ears popped. "I think something in or near the lab blew up. We've got to keep moving. The fire must be spreading." 

She climbed to her feet, and pulled Angela up. "Come on." 

*

Another period of fighting their way through darkened rooms followed. From the point of view of knowing which room they were in, Zoë's mental plan of the building still seemed to be working; but that didn't help when you were trying to pick your way through the shattered remains of what had been a collection of glass vases or force a jammed door open. The explosion must have shaken the doors out of the proper alignment; most needed Zoë's and Angela's combined efforts to shift. One had been completely immovable and they'd had to waste precious time on a detour. 

"One more corridor," Zoë gasped. "It's getting hard to breathe. Hands and knees. Keep below the smoke." 

She dropped to all-fours, and set out at the fastest crawl she could manage; Angela was, she hoped, just behind her. Down at this level, all their problems seemed magnified. Rather than just pushing a chair aside, you had to scramble over or round it, and anything smaller was a trap just waiting to cut your hand open. 

By the time they were halfway along the hallway, Zoë was sure that light was returning. She could see the dim outlines of her hands on the floor in front of her. Somehow, it didn't seem likely that it was anything other than the fire catching up with them. 

A little further on, and she was sure of it. She looked over her shoulder, and saw Angela a little way back. And behind her, at the far end of the hallway, flickering golden-red light. 

"That's the fire!" she called back. "We've got to hurry." 

By the time they'd reached the door, the tapestries at the far end of the corridor were ablaze. After what felt like hours in the darkness, the light, dim as it was, still hurt their eyes. 

Zoë staggered to her feet and tugged at the door handle, to no avail. Angela joined her, but the door refused to budge. 

"We've got to get this one open, haven't we?" Angela asked. "This is the Chilean Room. There's no other way in." 

"That's right," Zoë said. "On a count of three. One. Two. Three." 

They both tugged with all their strength, but with no more success. The flames were racing down the corridor towards them; at the far end, a lump of burning ceiling crashed down, cutting off their retreat. 

Zoë, grasping the door handle with both hands, tried to swing her legs up to push against the wall. But the heat, the smoke and simple exhaustion were getting to her, and she ended up on the ground. She looked up at Angela, half expecting another barrage of abuse. 

"What were you doing?" Angela asked. 

"Trying to push with my feet." 

"Yes, I see. If I hold you up, would that work better?" 

"It– might, I suppose." She took hold of the door handle again. Angela bent over and lifted her legs until her feet were pressed against the wall. 

Zoë took a deep breath, and straightened her legs. The door grated open about a foot, and then jammed again. 

"In there," she gasped, letting herself back down to the floor. 

Angela lost no time in complying, and the pair both managed to squeeze through the gap. The fire was almost at the door by now; scorching gusts of smoke followed them into the room, and the uncertain light of the fire in the hallway illuminated a small octagonal room lined with display cabinets. 

"Now we've got to close the door again," Zoë said. 

They threw their weights against the handle once more, and with a discordant squeal the door slid shut. Once more, pitch blackness fell. They both collapsed to the floor to recover their breath. 

"Now what?" Angela asked. "This is where you wanted to get to, isn't it?" 

"That's right." 

"But there's only that door. We're trapped." 

Zoë paused briefly before replying. "In the building plans I saw," she said. "There's a fire exit here. Somewhere on–" She searched her memory. "That wall." 

She pointed, a useless gesture in the dark, and then crawled in the direction she'd indicated. A bulky wooden object with inset panes of glass met her fingers. 

"It must be behind this cabinet," she said. "Help me to move it." 

There was a bump not too far away as Angela found the other side of the cabinet. 

"One," Zoë began. 

"Hang on a minute. We'll never shift this. It's massive." 

"We've got to." 

"But we **can't**." 

Zoë thought briefly. 

"We should be able to tip it over. That'd be enough." 

"Tip it over! You'd smash everything in it!" 

"If we don't, the fire will," Zoë said simply. "Now help me climb up there." 

It took several goes, fumbling in the dark, but eventually, with Angela's help, Zoë managed to clamber onto the top of the cabinet. She felt for the gap between the cabinet and the wall, pushed her fingers into it, and heaved. 

The cabinet rocked under her. 

"Angela, get back," she called. "I think this might work." 

Still holding onto the top of the cabinet with one hand, she pushed against the wall with the other. The cabinet swayed, and toppled. Zoë found herself helplessly falling into the opening gap. Something thumped her on the head, and the cacophony of splintering noises as the cabinet and its contents were destroyed seemed very far away. 

The next thing Zoë knew, she was being shaken. 

"Are you all right?" Angela's voice asked. 

"I'm not sure." Zoë sat up. She had a splitting headache, and her face felt wet – she must be bleeding. But the rest of her body still seemed to be in working order. "Did it work?" 

"There's no door!" Angela wailed. "There's just a wall. You must have got it wrong. We're still trapped." 


	7. Chapter 7

Zoë, still feeling lightheaded, ran her hands over the wall. 

"They must have blocked it up," she said. "The idiots! Didn't your uncle have to get fire safety approval on this place? Or did he get approval and **then** have all the exits bricked up?" 

"I don't know." Angela's voice was coming from the far side of the room. "This door's getting hot. And I'm feeling tired." 

"Yes, we must be running out of oxygen," Zoë agreed. "Well, I don't know what we do now." 

Silence fell for some moments. 

"Can't we do anything?" Angela asked. "I don't want to just sit here waiting to die." 

"If you've got any ideas, let's hear them." 

"It sounds silly... but can't we try to knock that wall down?" 

There was a longer silence. 

"It was just a thought," Angela added. 

"Now why," Zoë said, more to herself than Angela, "Didn't I think of that?" She jumped to her feet. "Angela, you're a genius! See if you can find something heavyish. There were some ugly metal things on the left as we came in–" 

"Bronzes from Valparaiso." 

"Well, get one. As heavy as you can, as long as you can carry it." 

Within seconds Angela was by her side. 

"Right. We hold this thing between us, and we swing it at the wall." 

They took hold of the object, a lump of metal roughly the same shape as a vegetable marrow, and brought it against the wall with all the force they could manage. There was a hollow crunch, and flakes of what Zoë supposed to be plaster drifted down around their feet. 

"I don't know if this'll work," Zoë said. "But it should keep us busy for a while." 

For another subjective age they hammered away at the selected patch of wall. Fortunately, it didn't seem to be particularly solidly constructed. A few blows had been sufficient to knock a hole in its outer layer, which got bigger with every further blow they landed. Beyond that was a network of criss-crossing beams, made of something that felt like reconstituted wood, and then the cool metal surface of what, presumably, was the emergency door they sought. 

If they'd come to the task fresh and rested, they'd probably have smashed their way through in minutes. As it was, they had to stop every after every few blows to gasp for breath. Their rests were getting longer, and their strength was rapidly diminishing. 

"This isn't working," Zoë managed. "We'll never get the whole door clear like this." 

"I'm not giving up," Angela replied. 

"Nor am I. But I think we need to change our approach..." Zoë staggered to her feet and felt around the edges of the hole. "We need to find the locking mechanism. It should be about this height." 

Angela pulled herself upright. "So you think we should try here?" 

She tapped the wall in various places. 

"Somewhere there. Let's go again." 

Zoë's arms felt like lead, but she managed to swing their improvised battering ram back, and bring it down on the target area. With the usual crunch, it smashed into the wall. That wasn't so bad. Lift the metal lump again, swing it. Two. And again. Three. Nearly through. Next one should hit the door. Lift, and– 

Instead of the familiar clang as they hit the surface of the door, there was a clunk, followed by a screech of rusted metal. All round the edges of the door, light was shining – not the flickering red light of the fire which was remorselessly hunting them down, but gentle daylight. Cool air brushed against their faces. The fire door had swung, rather than slid, open by a few degrees. 

Whether it was the fresh air, or the hope given to them by the light, Zoë didn't know. But in what felt like an impossibly short time, they'd managed to clear a big enough hole in the wall to get through, and with a few more blows of their trusty bronze, force the door fully open. Beyond it was a spiral staircase, lit by daylight shining through occasional blocks of glass in its far wall. Doubtless compared to normal daylight it would have seemed gloomy, but after the darkness and heat of the Chilean Room, it was paradise. 

"I'll hang on to this, just in case," Angela said, as they crawled through the hole onto the staircase. She looked down at the battered chunk of bronze, able for the first time to identify it. "'Leadership'. I never liked it much, until now." 

"Was it supposed to be anything?" Zoë asked. 

"No idea. Now what? Up or down?" 

"Down." 

They set off at a cautious walk. A cold wind was blowing in their faces, presumably all the way from the bottom of the tower. After no more than a couple of flights, they encountered another door, marked EVAC POD in white on a green background. Smaller notices warned of the dangers and penalties that awaited if the facility was used other than in an emergency. 

The door opened easily, revealing the interior of a cylinder, its sides made of glass or high-durability plastic and looking out onto blank walls. The floor was padded and dished in shape, rising at the edges into a similarly padded circular bench. 

Zoë followed Angela in, and glanced down the list of instructions on the wall. Close the door, pull the handle– 

Outside the cylinder, the walls fell away, revealing a view over the city every bit as spectacular as the one Zoë had seen from the roof garden on her first day. With a flare of chemical thrusters, the cylinder launched itself from the Harwood tower. Almost immediately, more rockets fired, bringing its lateral movement to a halt before it hit any other buildings. As the cylinder began to fall, three parachutes deployed from its top, and its plunge became a gentle downward drift. 

Zoë slumped to the floor, and looked back up at the tower. Black smoke was pouring from the shattered dome at the top, and various hovering fire appliances were spraying jets of water or foam into the inferno. Then, as the parachutes cut off her view, she looked across the capsule at Angela. 

It was quite hard to see any trace of the assured young socialite Zoë had first met in the huddled, shivering figure opposite her. Soot and plaster dust had certainly wrecked her clothes, and there were minor cuts and bruises on her arms and hands, but those were merely superficial. More significantly, she seemed to have shrunk within herself, and her violet eyes stared at Zoë in what appeared to be pure terror. 

"They're dead," Angela whispered, every trace of arrogance gone from her voice. "Uncle and Will." 

"Yes," Zoë said. "I'm sorry." 

Angela managed to divert her attention from Zoë and looked down at her hands as if she'd never seen them before. 

"I must look dreadful," she said. "You do." 

"As bad as all that?" Zoë asked, trying to make a joke of it. 

"Worse." 

"It's all right now. We're safe. And thank you for everything you did. If you hadn't been around we'd both be dead by now." 

"I know." Angela had to pause briefly to stop her teeth chattering. "Please don't take this the wrong way, but if we get out of this in one piece I never want to see you again." 

Zoë furrowed her brow, and wished she hadn't. She'd definitely cut her forehead taking that gamble with the cabinet. 

"Why?" she asked. "Do you think I caused all this trouble?" 

"No." Angela looked straight at her. "But you **enjoy** trouble. When we were trying to get into the Chilean Room, you looked just like my uncle looks – looked – when he was closing a deal." She shrugged. "I can't change what you are, and you did save my life, so–" 

The capsule hit the ground with a bump. As the parachutes drifted down around it, uniformed men raced towards it. 

"So, thank you – Zoë," Angela concluded. "But I hope we don't meet again." 

The door opened, revealing a group of paramedics. Several helped Angela to her feet, while another knelt in front of Zoë, examining the wound on her head. The last she saw of Angela was a stiff-legged figure wrapped in a thermal blanket, being led away. 

Distantly, she was aware that the medic was asking her questions, and that she was answering them as best she could. But that was with less than half of her mind. The rest was concentrating on the puzzle that Angela had managed to set her. 

She'd just had her second encounter with adventure, death and peril. On some level, was she developing a taste for it? 


	8. Chapter 8

With her injuries cleaned and bandaged, Zoë was patiently waiting in what appeared to be some kind of mobile headquarters vehicle, sitting on the plaza just outside the Harwood Tower. Theoretically she was free to leave at any time, but the military policeman who'd shown her here had been very clear that his commanding officer would like a word with her, and would be 'very disappointed' if he happened to miss her. It was the same sort of impossible-to-refuse request that had got her working for Sir Charles in the first place. In fact, now she thought about it, exactly the same. 

She was sharing the room with two soldiers, who were standing on either side of the only door. They had been happy to tell her what they knew, which wasn't a vast amount. The rest of the staff had managed to escape hours before she and Angela had; it seemed that in the Tower, fire safety had been inversely proportional to luxury. Sir Charles's employees had benefited from emergency lights, illuminated signs guiding them to safety, and fire doors just where they should have been. 

It wasn't certain what had caused the power failure, but enough was known to form a good guess. At the time of the explosion, various magnetic anomalies had been reported in the vicinity of the Tower. It was quite plausible that a sufficiently strong magnetic pulse, transmitted through the Tower's durosteel frame, could have shut down its fusion reactor. As yet, the emergency services hadn't declared the building safe, so no-one had tried to start the reactor up again or rig an alternative feed from the City's energy grid. 

Zoë looked up. She could hear footsteps approaching, and the sentries stiffened to attention. Orders were given – not shouted, but crisply spoken. Then the sentries marched out, and almost immediately two other people entered, closing the door behind them. 

It had to be an artefact of her education, Zoë thought. In situations where, logically, she ought to be in shock, all her emotions just shut down. How else could she explain the fact that the sight of the two people who had hired her didn't surprise her in the least? They were wearing more elaborate versions of the soldiers' dark green uniforms, which suited them a lot better than the business suits they'd worn before. 

"Good afternoon, Doctor Heriot," the man said. "I think we had better introduce ourselves properly. My name is Colonel Richard Stanley, and I work for UNISYC." 

"Captain Ruth Newman," his unsmiling colleague added. 

"UNISYC." Zoë nodded. In her mind, jigsaw pieces were falling into place. 

"Indeed. And we'd like you to tell us how you've fared since the last time we met, if it's not too much trouble." 

*

"We got to the evacuation pod and that's pretty much it," Zoë concluded. "The medics took Angela away as soon as we'd landed." 

Captain Newman, who'd been the primary interrogator, nodded curtly. 

"Thank you," she said. "One question. You said you tried to lie to the entity, whatever it was, that the Harwoods were trying to summon. And that's the last thing you remember before everything went pear-shaped. What did you tell it?" 

Zoë was unable to resist a smile. "Maxwell's Laws of Electromagnetism. Except some of the signs were reversed." 

Captain Newman considered that for a moment. 

"So when it tried to manipulate the power grid, it caused a runaway system collapse," she said. "Risky. If I started a fight between an extradimensional demon and a nuclear fusion reactor, I wouldn't want to be in the middle. What if it had killed you?" 

"I was going to die anyway. Logically, what else was there to do?" 

Newman nodded. "Sound enough. That should be all." 

"May I ask a question?" 

"By all means." It was the Colonel who answered. "You may not get an answer, of course." 

"Colonel, last time we met I asked why you'd chosen to hire me. I still don't have an answer. Presumably you knew or suspected that Sir Charles and his nephew were dabbling with dangerous technology, and you wanted someone to keep an eye on them. When Sir Charles decided to hire a temporary librarian, you made sure it was someone you supplied. But how do you get from there to supplying me? I'm an astrophysicist, not a spy." 

The Colonel leaned forward. 

"We have various sources of information," he said. "Of course, a lot of them can't be shared with you. But they gave us a fairly good picture of your strengths and weaknesses, and you did seem to be the right woman for the job." 

"But why? I'm not trained to–" Zoë fell silent. 

"Precisely. We didn't want a trained agent." 

"No," Zoë said slowly. "Sir Charles might not have spotted a trained agent. But he did catch on to me, because I'm not. He decided I was a spy because in reality I'm not a spy. That's quite paradoxical." 

The Colonel smiled. "As a great man once said: If you suspect that there is a rabbit in a hole, you put a ferret in. If the rabbit's there, he runs." 

"Yes. My presence brought matters to a head. And if I had been killed– well, I was expendable, wasn't I?" 

"Oh, we'd have been sorry to lose you. After all, you might come in handy again." 

While Zoë was absorbing the implications of that statement, Captain Newman spoke up. 

"Sir," she said. "EmServ report that the building is now safe." 

She handed the Colonel a tablet computer. He quickly glanced over it, and rose to his feet. 

"Good. If you'll come with us, Doctor, we'll see about retrieving your personal belongings." 

Zoë nodded, and followed the other two as they set off in the direction of the tower. 

*

Relieved to be back in her own clothes, Zoë took her final leave of Colonel Stanley just outside the Harwood Tower. 

"I'm free to go now?" she asked. 

"As free as the air," the Colonel replied. "But can I suggest something?" 

"What?" 

"Take it easy for a few days. If you turn up at work tomorrow with your head in a bandage you might have to answer some awkward questions. And, as this little exercise has just established, deception isn't your strong point." 

"I won't argue with that," Zoë said. She paused for a few moments, looking out over the plaza, her back to the tower. 

"You haven't asked me what happened to the library," the Colonel said. 

"I think, if I did, you'd tell me – tell everyone – that it was destroyed in the fire. Perhaps all of it, perhaps just the books the Harwoods were using." She turned to face him. "Am I right?" 

He nodded gravely. 

"If you need me again–" 

"If we do, we'll find you." The Colonel smiled, not entirely reassuringly. "Be seeing you." 

"Goodbye," Zoë replied, and walked away slowly, deep in thought. 

*

Once Zoë was out of sight, the Colonel returned to the tower. Captain Newman was standing just inside the main door, keeping an eye on a group of military technicians who were setting up a communications relay. 

"What did you make of Doctor Heriot?" he asked her. 

Newman considered the question. 

"Honest," she said. "Clever. Determined. Very open-minded. Not particularly tactful. In terms of experience... I'd say patchy, but there could be hidden depths. Definitely someone we should keep our eye on, sir." 

"When we took her on, you wondered if she was the right person for the job. Convinced now?" 

"Yes, sir. Sir, I would still like to know how she came to your notice. By all appearances, she's just another obscure scientist." 

"Oh, she's been on our radar for a long time," the Colonel replied offhandedly. "For over a hundred years, in fact." 

Newman raised her eyebrows. "Ah. Does this involve the Do–" She caught herself. UNISYC standing rules were to avoid referring to the Oncoming Storm by his preferred title. Officially this was for reasons of secrecy; it had given rise to a nagging worry that if you _did_ speak his title, he might turn up on your doorstep with catastrophe in his wake. "I'm sorry. Is this a Case Bohemia Sapphire situation?" 

"Exactly. We have at least two documented occurrences." 

"And you were testing her? To see if she's everything the files make her out to be?" 

"In part. And I think the results show some promise." He paused briefly as another squad of soldiers entered, this time with a portable generator. "Yes, we may very well find her useful again." 


End file.
